With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content;but her own opinion continued the same,and she left him disappointed and sorry.It was not in her nature,however,to increase her vexations by dwelling on them.She was confident of having performed her duty,and to fret over unavoidable evils,or augment them by anxiety,was no part of her disposition.
Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her father,their indignation would hardly have found expression in their united volubility.In Lydia's imagination,a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness.She saw,with the creative eye of fancy,the streets of that gay bathing place covered with officers.She saw herself the object of attention,to tens and to scores of them at present unknown.She saw all the glories of the camp;its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines,crowded with the young and the gay,and dazzling with scarlet;and to complete the view,she saw herself seated beneath a tent,tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once.
Had she known that her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these,what would have been her sensations?They could have been understood only by her mother,who might have felt nearly the same.Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself.
But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed;and their raptures continued,with little intermission,to the very day of Lydia's leaving home.
Elizabeth was now to see Mr Wickham for the last time.Having been frequently in company with him since her return,agitation was pretty well over;the agitations of former partiality entirely so.She had even learnt to detect,in the very gentleness which had first delighted her,an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary.In his present behaviour to herself,moreover,she had a fresh source of displeasure,for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those attentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve,after what had since passed,to provoke her.She lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry;and while she steadily repressed it,could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing that,however long,and for whatever cause,his attentions had been withdrawn,her vanity would be gratified and her preference secured at any time by their renewal.
On the very last day of the regiment's remaining in Meryton,he dined with others of the officers at Longbourn;and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good humour,that on his making some inquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford,she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings,and asked him if he were acquainted with the former.
He looked surprized,displeased,alarmed;but with a moment's recollection and a returning smile,replied that he had formerly seen him often;and after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man,asked her how she had liked him.Her answer was warmly in his favour.With an air of indifference he soon afterwards added,‘How long did you say that he was at Rosings?’
‘Nearly three weeks.’
‘And you saw him frequently?’
‘Yes,almost every day.’
‘His manners are very different from his cousin's.’
‘Yes,very different.But I think Mr Darcy improves on acquaintance.’
‘Indeed!’cried Wickham,with a look which did not escape her.‘And pray may I ask?’-but checking himself,he added in a gayer tone,‘Is it in address that he improves?Has he deigned to add aught of civility to his ordinary style?for I dare not hope,’he continued in a lower and more serious tone,‘that he is improved in essentials.’
‘Oh,no!’said Elizabeth.‘In essentials,I believe,he is very much what he ever was.’
While she spoke,Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words,or to distrust their meaning.There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention,while she added,
‘When I said that he improved on acquaintance,I did not mean that either his mind or manners were in a state of improvement,but that from knowing him better,his disposition was better understood.’
Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look;for a few minutes he was silent;till,shaking off his embarrassment,he turned to her again,and said in the gentlest of accents,
‘You,who so well know my feelings towards Mr Darcy,will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right.His pride,in that direction,may be of service,if not to himself,to many others,for it must deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by.I only fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you,I imagine,have been alluding,is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt,of whose good opinion and judgment he stands much in awe.His fear of her has always operated,I know,when they were together;and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss de Bourgh,which I am certain he has very much at heart.’
Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this,but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head.She saw that he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances,and she was in no humour to indulge him.The rest of the evening passed with the appearance,on his side,of usual cheerfulness,but with no further attempt to distinguish Elizabeth;and they parted at last with mutual civility,and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.
